Jim Forest


Jim Forest is an American writer, Orthodox Christian lay theologian, educator, and peace activist.
As a young man, Jim served in the US Navy, working with a meteorology unit at the US Weather Bureau headquarters near Washington, DC. It was during this period that he became a Catholic. His military service ended with an early discharge on grounds of conscientious objection.
After leaving the navy, Jim joined the staff of the Catholic Worker community in Manhattan, working close with the founder, Dorothy Day, and for a time serving as managing editor of the journal she edited, The Catholic Worker.
In 1964, while working as a journalist for the Staten Island Advance, in his spare time he co-founded the Catholic Peace Fellowship, working closely with Tom Cornell. This became a full-time job for both of them in 1965, a time that coincided with deepening US military engagement in Vietnam. The main focus of their work was counseling conscientious objectors.
In 1968, while Jim working as Vietnam Program Coordinator of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jim and thirteen others, mainly Catholic clergy, broke into nine Milwaukee draft boards, removing and burning some of the files in a nearby park while holding a prayer service. Most members of the "Milwaukee Fourteen" served thirteen months in prison for their action.
In the late sixties and mid-seventies, Jim also worked with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, first as Vietnam Program coordinator and later as editor of Fellowship magazine. From 1977 through 1988, he was Secretary General of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, work which brought him to the Netherlands. He received the Peacemaker Award from Notre Dame University's Institute for International Peace Studies and the St. Marcellus Award from the Catholic Peace Fellowship.
In 1988, Forest was received into the Orthodox Church. Since 1989, he has been international secretary of the as well as associate editor of its quarterly journal, In Communion. In 2017, he was ordained as Reader.
Jim had a long-term friendship with Thomas Merton, who dedicated a book to him, Faith and Violence. Jim also accompanied the famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.
A journalist and writer, his books include Praying with Icons, Ladder of the Beatitudes, The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment, biographies of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan, and several children's books, including Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins, Saint George and the Dragon and Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue.
He and his wife Nancy, a translator and writer, live in Alkmaar, the Netherlands.

Publications